Sony X Series Official Owners Thread

[azian_advanced]

this thread is pretty much dead... i think everyone moved on from the X.
while i think it is a superb design, awesome battery life, super light laptop, i will be moving on as well.. the X has done very well to please me but as I am about to graduate from engineering, my work now requires intensive computer processing power and RAM that the X just cannot provide. i was working on a 45 page Word document (with graphs and tables galore!) and the X just couldn't cope with it and lag. in addition, i'll need something that can stand CAD modelling and some light finite element analysis so i will now join the ranks of Z2 owners which i'll be picking up in a week. not sure if anyone would still be looking for an X in this day and age but i will be posting again when my X is up for sale. i'll be posting it on ebay in the next little while which will include all 3 batteries (S, L, and X) with matching VAIO zipper case.

[David.P]

Hi Forum,

sorry to be so late on this thread...

I just got a brand new Vaio X (VPCX11S1E) today.

Seeing that on the X obviously there is no hardware acceleration whatsoever, looking up "Vaio X hardware acceleration" on Google, and finding this thread, was a matter of minutes....

Anyway, in order to make this thing short, would some of you guys be as kind as to tell me if I'm right with the following assumptions:

• There is no Win7 graphics driver for the X with any (noteworthy) hardware acceleration (i.e. for browsing & flash video >= 360p), correct?
  
  
• There is no way (except the "matchstick" hack) to keep the X really quiet, correct?

I have tried mmmsheen's driver already (version 10) but did not notice much improvement (the X would not even play 360p flash video without the fan at max speed AND still dropping frames in the video).

My BIOS is version r0084u4.

So if my above assumptions should be correct, I think I'll return the X. It was supposed to replace my beloved ~10 years old Portégé R100 -- but since the X is SLOWER (and noisier) than that ancient Toshiba there's not really much justification for keeping the Vaio.

OK thanks guys already for any information/confirmation on this,

Regards David

[David.P]

Whoaa. Not sure what happened now. I have tried a coupe of GMA 500 driver versions from Intel, Asus etc. Now I'm back on the latest from Intel.

However for some reason, it seems that hardware acceleration is much better now.

With VLC, the little Vaio plays HD videos windowed or fullscreen, with like 30% CPU load with the fan off, even on battery.

And Youtube videos even play with 720p and less than 100% CPU. Although that only seems to be the case in Chrome, not as good in Opera or IE9.

Any comments?

Cheers David

[azian_advanced]

i'd like to test this out. do you have a link to the download?

[50sQuiff]

With the Intel GMA driver the X can play HD H264 files smoothly. Windows Media Player does the job fine. I use v2026 drivers, which people generally report to give the best performance. With Aero disabled (and any number of other Win7 tweaks) I find the X is more than adequate for web and Office 2010 use.

Where it falls down is 3D obviously, as well as Flash acceleration. It plays YouTube 360p windows just fine, but anything higher than that or full screen it's pretty useless. Perhaps one day we'll get an EMGD driver that helps, but I'm not holding my breath.

But on the whole, its excellent screen and unique form compensate for the shortcomings in performance I feel.

[matthias2468]

I am using the earplug hack. Don't use the matchstick hack, it will shut down the X after some time.

Seriously: Has anyone opened the X to remove dust from the fan area? I feel my has become hotter and louder over the years, but I am afraid of opening the X, resp. I am afraid of being the first do try to remove dust. If anyone has done this before, it would be great if they could post some comments. Oh and pictures and detailed instructions, of course

Getting back to the noise issue: David, set CPU to 800-1600MHz instead of 800-2000, and use pssuspend and/or yawffer to freeze processes that heat up the machine whilst they are not actually in use. disable search. use a cpu lightweight AV. disable aero. when doing primitive tasks, go down to 800mhz fixed. i have shortcuts for several schemes, using the C:\Windows\System32\powercfg.exe -setactive command.

[David.P]

Thanks guys, that is great information, as always.

This is the driver that I currently use (Version:5.0.0.2030):

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...&DwnldID=19155

This is the AVC/mp4 video that plays in VLC almost without any CPU load:



@matthias2468: I wouldn't bother opening the X but instead buy a can of air duster spray and use that to blow out the dust from both sides of the air duct.

Btw, how would I go about to set the CPU to lower MHz -- is that the fan settings in the Vaio control center?

And how come that Flash video is (somehow) not accelerated on the GMA500? I thought Flash was advertised of being HW accelerated a long time ago already. Anyway, in Google Chrome it seems to be as if Flash actually WAS accelerated (it even plays 720p video smoothly)! *

OTOH, chrome itself is barely usable on the X, as compared to the speed of Opera (where the fan is off most of the time -- except with flash video of course).

After doing like really a LOT of research I still couldn't find any other Windows subnotebook that would beat the X overall -- thin, stylish, minimalistic, with UMTS, and NOISELESS.

Or has anyone found anything already that could replace the X, honorably?

Cheers David.P

--
*) Adobe says:

Put another way, Flash Player using Stage Video can effortlessly play beautiful 1080p HD video with just 1-15% CPU usage on a common Mac or Windows computer* – working across platforms and browsers, it will enable the best video experience for the most people. Many millions of additional PCs, from netbooks to desktops, can now become slick HD home theaters on the web.

* For example, using Flash Player 10.2 with Stage Video hardware acceleration, we’ve tested a Mac Mini released two years ago and a low-powered GPU-enabled Windows netbook playing smooth full HD 1080p video using less than 8% of the CPU; more powerful computers use even less.

So what does that mean in terms of the X -- or put it that way, why does it seem to be true for Flash video in the Chrome browser, but not in other browsers?

[ArchiMark]

Thanks guys, that is great information, as always.

{Snip....}

After doing like really a LOT of research I still couldn't find any other Windows subnotebook that would beat the X overall -- thin, stylish, minimalistic, with UMTS, and NOISELESS.

Or has anyone found anything already that could replace the X, honorably?

Cheers David.P

For me, it was the VAIO P....but of course, it is a smaller device, so, that may or may not be good for your needs....but find it to be a great ultraportable, yet still with usable keyboard and display....

[David.P]

Yep, a nice little machine, the Vaio P.

For me, ultra-portability is not THAT important in itself -- actually the X in my case sits on or besides the living room desk 99% of the time displaying Google Mail. And I can only have a VERY stylish and thin notebook in the living room, for "sociability" reasons.

The other 1% the X is used for e-mail on the road (mostly in holidays).

By installing the latest flash player beta, it seems that the X now plays 360p and 420p YouTube video in Opera (in normal and extended video size) fluidly with CPU load between 40 and 70 %.

However, by switching between HW acceleration on and off in flash (right click into flash video and choose "Options"), it can be seen that obviously there still is no GMA 500 Flash hardware acceleration at all.

Anyway, as I can browse the web with the fan off, and watch YouTube video at up to 480p, there is not much to be desired for me anymore, regarding the X.

Here's the Flash 11.2 beta:

Adobe Flash Player 11.2 Beta for Desktops | applications, content and videos - Adobe Labs

This is my standard test video:

HD Fractal Zoom 2^518.4 - YouTube

It’s a bit psychedelic, however it is very fast and fluid, so any dropped frames can be easily recognized.

Cheers David.P

[matthias2468]

Hi David,
thanks for the duster spray idea. I wonder if this may lead to some of the dust beeing blown into angles/areas within the air duct, where it, in the worst case, causes even more heat.... Also, the fan "wheel" itself, which has lots of "wings", is in the way when cleaning with pressured gas, as well as the grids. I actually doubt the duct can be cleaned that way. Readers may want to check out Sony Vaio X teardown: Cooling fan assembly - Top | 70 of 89

As to Opera, I too am using Opera on the X as it is much faster than FF/IE/Chrome, when set to automatic RAM in settings. It will go very heavy on RAM and CPU though, when many tabs are opened.
=> In fact, since I have been using Opera, whilst browsing became super fast and a joy, noise has become a huge problem, unlike what you describe some posts above. It largely depends on the number of tabs, though, and the type of websites/technology within the tabs. I wished Opera was able to automatically freeze tabs that have not been in use, after e.g. 30 secs. (Until they are activated again) There would huge savings in CPU.
Since the use of Opera, I also wished there was more RAM in the X.


PS. If anyone has chosen to try to clean the X's heat sink/fan with duster spray, please do report! Thanks! =)
PPS. I am also concerned about spills, i.e. liquid from the can of compressed gas that may damage the inside of the X...